Method for computing price discounts in an e-commerce environment

Abstract

A method and structure for a set of rules processed by combining a procedural rule engine and a pattern matching inference engine to compute and apply discounts to customer orders in an electronic commerce system. The rule processing occurs in multiple phases. First all applicable discounts are computed. Then all allowable subsets of discounts are computed. Finally, a set of discounts is selected, based on business policies, and the discounts are applied to the order line items.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The invention generally relates to the data processing field. More specifically, the invention relates to the field of electronic order processing in an electronic commerce environment. 2. Description of the Related Art In a business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-business (B2B) electronic commerce environment, customer orders often contain multiple line items comprising at least a unique item identifier, such as a Stock Keeping Unit (SKU), quantity ordered, and unit price for each item being ordered. At any time, there may be multiple discounts available to the customer based on the customer's identity, date of order, identities of individual items purchased, combinations of items purchased, quantity of items purchased, and total dollar amount of the items purchased. In Internet e-commerce sites, such as those run by IBM WebSphere® Commerce Suite, available from IBM, NY, USA, a marketing manager needs to be able to easily...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The invention provides flexibility in that a marketing manager can identify new discounts and have them take effect, even though they may conflict with other existing discounts. The approach provided by the invention resolves the allowable discounts by applying a “meta-rule” that avoids having multiple discounts applied to the same items in the order. The rule-based inference algorithm used in the preferred embodiment of the invention provides superior performance. The basic principles of the invention could be applied to other systems where individual rules specify outcomes that abide by “meta-rules” and need subsequent evaluation to resolve conflicts and optimize the ruleset.

Problems solved by technology

The combinatorial explosion caused by large catalogs of items, large numbers of items in individual orders, and large numbers of applicable discounts can easily overwhelm an e-commerce website.

Making the specification of discounts a task a business manager can perform is also difficult in today's e-commerce environment.

This causes a drain on internal company resources and adds to implementation time.

Another difficulty is that adding a new discount to the e-commerce transaction may override some other discounts or cause complex interactions in terms of the impact on the best price or profit.

This makes the definition and addition of new discounts costly and error prone.

Thus, the conventional systems do not adequately provide solutions easily adaptable in today's e-commerce environment where speed and flexibility are essential.

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